Ashborn Chapter 12
Trapped underground after the fiery collapse of the Aerie, the survivors uncover forgotten tunnels carved with ancient dragon sigils—and face the dangerous pull of desire and command.
“Total structural collapse with cremation of everyone and every-dragon inside?” Veyrakh summed up the briefing Father had given him, bouncing Alira on his hip.
“You’re right, Kaelin. There would be nothing left to bury.”
He paused, just a short beat. “And that, my dear boy, is to our advantage.”
The dragons had surrounded us. Formed a wall between us and the entrance to the Aerie. In full view of the camera, ensuring we were perfectly framed.
“That one,” Tamsin suddenly pointed at one of the charges, “is set to blow inward. And it’s hollow behind.”
Kaelin blinked. Father looked at his daughter-in-law. “You sure?”
She walked over to investigate. “Yes. I knocked on the wall. It echoed in a way that only happens when there is a space. I’m not sure how much, though. As for the explosive, I’ve disarmed hundreds of these.”
“You can do it?”
“I can. But I’m not going to disarm it. I’m going to isolate it from the others. Trigger it alone. Blow it clean. But I’ll need both hands.” She looked at her father-in-law. “I’ll need you to rewire the others so we can detonate them ourselves.”
“And if you fail?” Mother looked pale, her words tight.
Tamsin didn’t look up.
“Then I don’t think it will be a problem anymore.”
I whispered to Veyrakh, who was again standing at my side, “What if they see her messing around with one of the charges and decide to just go ahead and blow this place sky high?”
“Then I don’t think it will be an us problem.” He dryly replied, copying Tamsin’s words, holding me closer to him as he eyed the camera. “Besides. I watched them install it. It’s an old security model. No audio. No thermal pickup.” He snorted, softly. “They’re probably debating which pub to hit after work.”
I should have laughed.
I should have been watching Tamsin.
But Veyrakh’s arm sat tight around my waist, his hand splayed so his thumb just barely caressed the side of my breast, his voice low, calm, and steady in my ear, possessive in a way that left my thoughts smoking, knees buckling, and want pooling in my belly.
“Fire in the hole!” Tamsin’s voice rang clearly, telling everyone to stand away from the blast radius of the charge. I looked up, dazed as the explosion rocked us.
Just had Tamsin had indicated, there was a hollow space behind the wall. An old passageway that had been long sealed. So old even the records of its existence were lost.
“Go! Go!” The dragons herded us through the opening, all switching forms to enter. It smelled of dust and a hint of mold. Soon the dragons had piled the stones back over the breach. Our motley little crew knocked down cobwebs as we walked through the dark tunnels until Orin pulled out a small flashlight. And Tamsin and Father, bringing up the rear, detonated the remainder of the charges, collapsing the Aerie. And triggering an inferno.
The floor quivered as the shockwave rolled through the tunnel. Dust hissed down from the ceiling, peppering us with grit.
For a long moment, no one spoke. The only sound was the fading thunder of falling stone far behind us. I tasted iron in the air—smoke seeping through unseen cracks.
“It’s gone,” Orin whispered.
“Good,” Tamsin said without looking back. Her hands still trembled, faint against the glow of her field lamp. Father reached out—not to comfort, but to steady. Their fingers met briefly, a silent exchange heavier than words.
Sethus kicked a pebble ahead. “All those rooms. All the history.”
“All the ghosts,” Veyrakh corrected. His voice carried the low steel of command. “Let the Aerie and the Order bury its own dead.”
The light from his wrist torch cut a hard line across his face, catching the matte black fabric of the combat rig he wore—standard Flight issue, scarred by heat and soot. Even like this, he looked carved from the same rock that had tried to kill us.
Somewhere along the winding path full of switchbacks, the stone floor and walls turned to dirt. We have no idea about the structural integrity of these tunnels or where they lead. Veyrakh’s answer came swiftly, calm and sure. Don’t worry. We can get out.
“Our luck, this tunnel will lead straight to the Command Offices at the Citadel,” Sethus whined. That possibility hadn’t been considered. But it was possible that it had once been a direct connection between Command and the Aerie.
“If that happens, just smile and wave,” Veyrakh quipped.
“What about a portal?” One of the dragons spoke up.
“Too dangerous. Too much risk of being tracked or intercepted.” Veyrakh shut him down. “Only if we have absolutely no other option.”
We continued to walk. The ground seemed to continue to slope downward. I began to hear the trickle of water in the distance as the walls widened, and we finally stumbled into a cavern that would make the largest dragon seem tiny. A swiftly coursing river crashed over the rocks to a waterfall we could just make out in the distance, the spray catching the fire of the setting sun at the edge of the cavern, making it shimmer red and gold like a gem.
The passage narrowed until the tallest of the dragons had to duck. Boots scraped on stone slick with condensation. Claustrophobia pressed close, thick as the dust.
“These tunnels predate the Courts,” Father muttered, running gloved fingers along a carved support arch. “Obsidian inlay. Ember Flame work. Maybe Second Era.”
“Then we’re walking through a tomb,” I said.
“Or a warning,” Veyrakh murmured. He brushed the wall where a scorched sigil had half-melted into the rock. I caught the faint outline of wings coiled around a burning heart.
“The first mark of the Flight,” he said. “Before the Courts divided. Before we learned unity burns as bright as war.”
The words echoed down the corridor like a benediction for the dead.
The tunnel widened into a natural antechamber before breaking into the cavern beyond. The air grew colder, damp enough that breath steamed in the beams of our lights.
We stopped to rest. Most of the dragons had stripped off their outer armor plates, the matte metal clinking quietly as they adjusted straps and powered down comms. Even out of uniform, they looked like soldiers—disciplined, contained, their human shapes holding something far older at bay.
“We’ll need to map this,” Tamsin said, pulling a strip of parchment from her vest. “No telling how far the collapse sealed us in.”
“You won’t find any maps,” Father replied. “No one should have known this place existed.”
“Someone did,” she said, pointing to a faint line of torch brackets embedded in the far wall. “And they planned to come back.”
Veyrakh crouched near the water’s edge, boots sinking into the silt. He let his hand hover just above the current, reading its flow the way others read stars.
“This stream feeds into the lower veins,” he said. “If we follow it, we might reach open air.”
“Might?”
“If the river remembers where to go.” His smile was brief, unreadable in the glow of the lights.
I should have stepped back, but the heat between us lingered—quiet, deliberate, dangerous. Even here, surrounded by soldiers in black and stone dust, his presence filled the space like gravity. The world above burned, and part of me wanted to burn with it.
And I couldn’t get the way Veyrakh had held me out of my mind. Deliberately framed for the camera. An ancient being who watched universes spring to life and die out, who could wear a man’s form like a mask, chose my form to wrap his arm around.
While cuddling my niece.
I didn’t know if it was for me. Or them.
The fire he’d lit in me burned hotter than the wreckage of the Aerie we’d left behind. The pile of smoke and ruin.
And if he’d even nudged me a little, given me one more touch, one more whisper, I would have given him everything.
Right there.
In the dirt and dust, on the stone floor of the Aerie, I’d have spread my legs for him without a second thought.
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